London:
Britain’s King Charles III visited Ukrainian troops training in trench warfare in southwest England on Monday, as Russia neared the one-year mark of a massive invasion of its western neighbour.
British forces announced last week that they had reached a target of training 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers in six months, giving the often inexperienced soldiers skills they can use on the front line.
The monarch visited the training site in Wiltshire in central England, where 200 soldiers are completing five weeks of basic combat training under New Zealand Army Chief Tony Harris.
Charles exchanges traditional Maori greetings with one of the soldiers involved, who arrives from New Zealand.
The emperor and the burly man in camouflage press their noses and foreheads together, a greeting called hogi.
Charles also sees how the ditch is blown up during a gun battle.
He told a senior Ukrainian official: “You are amazing. I don’t know how you do it. I am full of admiration.”
Harris said that she and Charles talked about the fact that in Ukraine “they have returned to trench warfare”, the type of fighting most synonymous with World War I more than a century earlier.
Harris said, “due to the really strong defense that Ukraine has … the bulk of the holding line is digging and preparing for the worst.”
And 20,000 Ukrainians are set to train in the UK this year.
Charles met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at Buckingham Palace when the wartime leader visited London earlier this month.
Zelensky thanked Charles for his “warm welcome and support for Ukrainian citizens seeking refuge from the war”.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and was auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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